near-death experience

What does it mean to have a near-death experience (NDE)?

It means coming back to life after being declared clinically deceased. Millions of people across the globe report such incidents. Some "came back" after just minutes while others were gone for a much longer time. In one case a person called Mellon-Thomas Benedict came back to life after being clinically dead for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

near-death experience - real or not?

What happens when we die is a question that has divided scientists and religious leaders for centuries.

More and more near-death experience research is seeing the light of day indicating proof of afterlife.

However, many neuroscientists beg to differ since a NDE is a personal experience associated with death or impending death.

From a research point of view they suggest that a near-death experience is a subjective phenomenon resulting from disturbed bodily multi-sensory integration that occurs during life-threatening events.

Dr. Morse is a pediatrician and neuroscientist and is considered to be one of America's top pediatricians. He has studied near-death experiences of children since 1980 and his research shows that these experiences were real, linked to a specific function of the right temporal lobe.

When he studied the mechanisms behind these experiences he saw that we all are connected to the universe and to everything.

"Our Mission is to promote an understanding that we all have a biological connection to a "quantum universe" that we access continually during our ordinary lives. We want to explore and promote the practical applications of understanding this new paradigm of consciousness". Melvin L Morse

In his research he received a lot of feedback from children having a near-death experience. Dr. Morse refers to these feedbacks in several of his books and here is one of them:

"Dr. Morse, I have a wonderful secret to tell you. I was climbing a staircase to heaven". Chris, age 8, told me this after being resuscitated when his heart stopped beating as a result of kidney failure.

He goes on to talk about another child - a seven year old girl who nearly drowned in a swimming pool. After her near-death experience she drew a picture of heaven and she included her unborn brother. She showed it to Dr.Morse

"As I expressed complete disbelief at her story, she patted me condescendingly on the hand and told me, "You'll see Dr. Morse, Heaven is fun." She wanted to stay in heaven, however, a person she thought was Jesus told her that she had to go back to help her mother with medical problems associated with her (then) unborn brother. She didn't know what these problems were as the baby was not born yet. Yet she drew her unborn brother at the bottom of the picture with a big heart in his chest. After this drawing was made, he was born with severe heart disease.

P. M. H. Atwater

P.M.H. Atwater:

P.M.H. Atwater is one of the most well-known researchers in the field of near-death experiences. She is one of the very few top near-death experience researchers who have actually had a near-death experience.

In 1977 she died three times in three months - January 2nd, January 4th and March 29th. These three NDEs made a big impact on her.

The following year, in an effort to understand what had happened to her, she began to seek out and interview other near-death survivors. In total she interviewed more than 3,000 people with near-death experience. Her research about the after-effects of near-death were published in 1981 in Vital Signs magazine.

As a result her book Beyond the light, what isn't being said about The Near Death Experience is perhaps the most complete compendium done on near-death experience.

In another book of hers, We Live Forever, she talks about how the meeting with The Light, with God, completely changes you as a person and what you perceive as reality:

"The Light is the very essence, the heart and soul, the all-consuming consummation of ecstatic ecstasy. It´s a million suns of compressed love dissolving everything unto itself, annihilating thought and cell vaporizing humanness and history, into the one great brilliance of all that is and all that ever was and all that ever will be. You know it´s God. No one has to tell you. You know. You can no longer believe in God, for belief implies doubt. There is no more doubt. None".

This is what The Light does to you, she says. You are reborn because at last you re-member. You are an expression of The One Mind. This is what´s going on here on Earth. We express the potential of The One Mind. We manifest the un-manifested and make it "real" in the physical realm. There is only one of us here. One Mind experiencing itself in a "sea og energy". One Mind One Energy.

During her lifetime she has received numerous awards and has lectured twice at the United Nations. In addition, her writings have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers.

In the video below she talks about what people experience in their near-death experiences.

Concept of ONE

In her research Atwater heard many near-death experience stories and in one of them we meet "Ken" who shares his story. He´s being rushed to the emergency room after an accident. He "dies" and describes what happened:

My eyes were open, but I did not see. I had the sensation of moving through a dark space then I suddenly was in the light. I was across the emergency room by the counter and could see the gurney flanked by a State Trooper.

I was on the gurney and I could see myself as though looking at myself from several feet away over my left shoulder. There was no pain or physical sensation of any kind. I was then swept by an euphoric feeling. I had a feeling of great peace and calm.

I knew I was dead, but had no adverse feeling, no fear. I felt completely at peace and without need or want of any kind. I had the feeling of complete contentment, total relaxation, and of being home. I began to have understandings.

As though someone had communicated with me, but without an audible sound. This was a pure communication process with me comprehending and understanding without the use of verbalizations.

There was no entity visible to me providing the messages, but I assumed a presence. I was very comfortable with this and did not question or feel shocked by the occurrence. I was not afraid nor did I have a desire to see the presence.

Indeed, I had no desires or wants of any kind. The understandings I had were: I no longer had any need or want, these included food and drink, companionship, or entertainment. I was without emotion except for the euphoria I was feeling.

I had no desire to ask questions, being so totally at peace with myself and my surroundings. I was not interested in my body or what had happened to cause my death. I was made to understand I was to return. At this point I had my only desire. I wanted to stay. I made an inquiry, the same way I was made to understand.

I knew my desire to stay was understood without me having to speak. The wall beyond my gurney became transparent and I was shown what appeared to be a flowing river. It was silver and shimmering as it flowed.

The drops in the river were each a different color yet all flowed together as one body of water. Nothing gave me the impression this was actually water or a river, but this is the best descriptive example that can be given of something I witnessed for which there are no words.

I understood (I use this term because I did not actually hear) the drops were the experiences of all who had lived. The experiences existed as separate items yet belonged to the whole. The whole was the collective knowledge of all. I understood there was no individual, just one, yet each experience was individual making up the whole.

This concept of ONE is so foreign to any description I can give, there seems to be no way now of describing it. My previous understanding of One was a single uniqueness. In this case One is something else. Many being One and One being many, both existing simultaneously in the same time and space. I further understood that the collective experiences are omniscient knowledge. Everything that has been spoken, heard, and experienced.

We are all energy and part of ONE UNIVERSAL Consciousness. Learn more by getting the Make A Ripple Make A Difference e-book about energy, the universe, consciousness, the power of thought and how they make ripples in the sea of energy we call the universe, the formula for success and much more.

Dr. Raymond Moody

Dr. Raymond Moody

Raymond Moody, M.D., Ph.D. is the bestselling author of twelve books which have sold over 20 million copies. He has also authored in academic and professional literature numerous articles on life after life, or near-death experiences - a term he coined in 1975.

The same year he published his book Life After Life - and this pioneering work transformed the world, revolutionizing the way we think about death and what lies beyond. This book is the groundbreaking study of one hundred people who experienced “clinical death” and were revived, and who tell, in their own words, what lies beyond death.

He continues to draw enormous public interest and generate controversy with his ground-breaking works on the near-death experience and what happens when we die.

Dr. Moody’s research into the phenomenon of near-death experience started in the 1960’s and The New York Times calls him “the father of the near-death experience.”

Dr. Moody has also investigated a phenomenon called shared near-death experience. This is a phenomenon where a near-death experience is actually shared by someone who is not dying, but who is emotionally connected or in close proximity to someone who is concurrently in the ‘life/death’ transition.

Dr. Raymond Moody began to hear about these shared-death experiences in the 1980´s when he was doing his near-death experience research. Friends, family, and medical personnel go along with the dying as they are surrounded by the light, taken through the tunnel, and sometimes even take part in the life review.

Together with author Paul Perry Dr. Moody wrote the book Glimpses of Eternity (published October 2010 ) which was the first book to talk about the phenomenon of shared death experiences, this common, but mysterious experience of family and friends sharing a loved one’s journey from this life to the next. It seems like this type of experience is becoming increasingly reported.

other NDE researchers

Some other NDE researchers and spokespersons worth mentioning are Bruce Greyson, Kenneth Ring and Peter Fenwick.

Bruce Greyson

Bruce Grey is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia. He is the co-editor of The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences that was published in 2009.

Kenneth Ring

Kenneth Ring is Professor Emeritus of psychology at the University of Connecticut, and a researcher within the field of near-death studies. Ring is the co-founder and past president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) and is also the author of several books on NDE.

One of them is Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blindwhere the book investigates the astonishing claim that blind persons, including those blind from birth, can actually ‘see’ during near-death or out-of-body episodes. Dr. Ring has also confirmed research findings previously shown by Dr. Raymond Moody and his conclusions include that NDEs happen to people of all races, genders, ages, education, marital status, and social class. Religious orientation is not a factor and people are convinced of the reality of their NDE experience.

Peter Fenwick Peter Fenwick is a neuropsychiatrist and neurophysiologist who is known for his studies of epilepsy and end-of-life phenomena. He´s recognized as an authority on the relationship between the mind and the brain. He is also the author of several books one of them being The Truth in the Light - an investigation of over 300 Near-Death Experiences.

Mellen-Thomas Benedict: the most studied "Near-deather" in the world

Mellen-Thomas Benedict

in 1982 Mellen-Thomas Benedict suffered from terminal brain cancer. It was inoperable and he was given six to eight months to live. When he "died" he was gone for one hour and 30 minutes - his monitor showing no vital signs. Miraculously he returned to his body with a complete remission of the disease.

P.M.H Atwater refers to this case as the only case she has come across (she has spoken with or interviewed over 3,000 near-death survivors) where an individual will-fully changed the episode-scenario as to what was actually happening.

He is the most studied "near-deather" in the world and has devoted much of his time to scientific research and taken part in lots and lots of "think-tanks". Deepak Chopra has called him the encyclopedia of the after life.

After he "died" he was taken to the light. He explains:

I was rocketing away from the planet on the stream of Life. I saw the earth fly away. The solar system, in all its splendor, whizzed by and disappeared. At faster than light speed, I flew through the center of the galaxy, absorbing more knowledge as I went. I learned that this galaxy, and all of the Universe, is bursting with many different varieties of LIFE. I saw many worlds.

He also talks about seeing an angel when he cried out for help after he "died". The angel appeared and he understood this to be his Higher Self. He was taken to a rainbow shimmering light through a tunnel or light-beam. Part of the "beam" was going to the light and part of it was going from the light. As he was going up towards the light he realized that this "beam" going up was people dying at that time.The other side of the same light - "the beam" going in the other direction - were all the souls being reborn.

the void

Mellen-Thomas Benedict also refers to the “void” which he experienced while "on the other side". This void was believed by scientists to exist in space and in each individual atom. However, the empty space between the core of an atom and its electrons is not empty. It is pure energy. Mellen-Thomas Benedict explains:

“It took me many years after I returned from my near-death experience to assimilate any words at all for the void experience. I can tell you this now; the void is less than nothing, yet more than everything that is! The void is absolute zero; chaos forming all possibilities. It is absolute consciousness; much more than even universal intelligence.

The void is the vacuum or nothingness between all physical manifestations —the space between atoms and their components. Modern science has begun to study this space between everything. They call it zero-point. Whenever they try to measure it, their instruments go off the scale, or to infinity, so to speak. They have no way, as of yet, to measure infinity accurately.

There is more of the zero space in your own body and the universe than anything else! What mystics call the void is not a void. It is so full of energy, a different kind of energy that has created everything that we are. Everything since the Big Bang is vibration, from the first word, which is the first vibration. The Biblical “I am” really has a question mark after it: “I am? What am I?”

So creation is God exploring God’s Self through every way imaginable, in an ongoing, infinite exploration through every one of us. During my near-death experience I began to see that everything that is, is the Self, literally, your Self, my Self. Everything is the great Self. That is why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible because wherever you are is the center of the universe. Wherever any atom is, that is the center of the universe. There is God in that, and God in the void.”

Mellen-Thomas Benedict passed away on March 31, 2017.

Dr. Eben Alexander

Dr. Eben Alexander

As a prominent scientist he said he could explain near-death experiences (NDE) as functions of the brain, but that was before his own NDE.

After his experience he completely shifted his view about the relationship between the brain, consciousness and the afterlife.

In 2008, Dr. Eben Alexander’s brain was severely impaired by a devastating case of bacterial meningitis, and he lapsed into a weeklong coma.

It was almost certainly a death sentence, but he miraculously survived and brought back with him an astounding story.

During those seven days in coma, he was plunged into the deepest realms of consciousness, and came to understand profound truths about the universe we inhabit.

He decided to share his story with the world and in October 2012 he published his book Proof of Heaven. He says:

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of- body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.

There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.

consciousness moves on

NDE research suggests that consciousness can never cease to exist. When we die we leave the body behind, but it doesn´t mean we are gone forever.

When we die we simply ‘shift’ to another experience within The One Cosmic Mind. We are still conscious and aware after we die. We are conscious beings and when the body dies the consciousness continues.

Gary R. Renard also mentions this in his book The Disappearance Of The Universe. He says:

What you call this side and the other side are really just two sides of the same illusory coin. It ́s all the universe of perception. When your body appears to stop and die, your mind keeps right on going.

The body is the vehicle or the container used by consciousness to experience itself. If you drive a car and the car breaks down you leave the car behind and continue your journey. The same with consciousness. The body breaks down and dies, but consciousness (the driver) moves on. Just like in the movie Avatar. The main character, Jack Sully, moves his consciousness from his Earthly body to the body of The Avatar. It´s still the consciousness of Jack, but he´s experiencing himself through another body.

NDE is not a recent phenomenon

Thanks to people like Moody, Morse, Atwater, Greyson, Ring, Fenwick, Benedict, Alexander and other like them more and more attention and focus is being given to the field of NDE.

But why is this happening in our time?

Is NDE a recent phenomenon? No, it´s not a new phenomenon. A great number of them have been recorded over a period of thousands of years. We find stories with NDE resemblance in ancient text and religious books. We also find evidence of this in the work of the Greek philosopher and mathematician Plato (427-347 BCE).

But why are we seeing a growing interest in this field now - in our life time?

Why do we find an emerging interest for spiritual information in books and films about the afterlife? Because it´s time.

We are ready to take in a new truth. There was no way that this concept could have been understood until now. Why? Because we didn’t have the language in order to describe it. Our true language is our reflected reality, the words we use are just labels for things and descriptions of interactions.

You can easily see that we were waiting for technological advance, which can then be used in order to provide examples, research, studies in order to explain such complex concept, our truth that we are ALL ONE.